Monetary Policy and Regional Inequality
52 Pages Posted: 30 Mar 2020
Date Written: March, 2020
Abstract
We study the impact of monetary policy on regional inequality using granular data on economic activity at the city- and county-level in Europe. We document pronounced heterogeneity in the regional patterns of monetary policy transmission. The output response to monetary policy shocks is stronger and more persistent in poorer regions, with the difference becoming particularly pronounced in the extreme tails of the distribution. Regions in the lower parts of the distribution exhibit hysteresis, consisting of long-lived adjustments in employment and labor productivity in response to the shocks. As a consequence, policy tightening aggravates regional inequality and policy easing mitigates it.
Keywords: local projections, monetary policy, quantile regressions, regional heterogeneity
JEL Classification: C32, E32, E52
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
